Vicente Fox lumps Cain, Perry together

In a bit of good news for Rick Perry, who has been struggling to explain his immigration policies to a wary conservative base, former Mexican President Vicente Fox lumped him in with Herman Cain for criticism.

Cain has been trying to explain his comment that he wants to build an electrified fence all along the border, to kill anyone who tries to enter the U.S. illegally. Perry has not quite spoken in those terms, but he has talked about military action as an option to deal with bi-national crime that crosses the border.

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"Look at this guy now decrying publicly that he put electric wire on top of the fence 20 meters high so that immigrants die," said Vicente, ostensibly referring to Herman Cain. "I mean it's incredible, it's nonsense what's going on with the oldest democracy in the world?" Vicente seemed to be referring to comments presidential candidate Herman Cain made during a campaign appearance with Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County, Arizona on Monday. In that appearance Cain he walked back his apology for calling for an electrified fence on the Mexican border that would kill anyone who tried to climb over.

"And it might be electrified — I'm not walking away from that. I just don't want to offend anybody. It was a joke to the extent in the context of the views of that speech, but in terms of what we need to do, I fully intend to do so because I'm more sensitive to our citizens being hurt," said Cain.Texas Governor Rick Perry, also a presidential candidate, meanwhile has said he wouldn't take any options off the table with regards to crime coming across Mexican border, including US military action.

"U.S. military action? God, protect us, we had so many in the past we don't want no more," said Fox. "We lost part of our territory through that. We lost New Mexico, Texas and California. No more wars. No more U.S. Army in our territory, I would die to prevent that."

Fox has a cameo in a Mitt Romney web video slamming Perry on immigration.

Fox also spoke as the candidates are gathering in Nevada, home to a large Hispanic population, for the fifth fall debate.